Episode 2 The Arts Show

monthly look at the best Arts and Culture in Northern Ireland. We're

coming to you from the old Shoe Factory in Belfast which sits at the

edge of the city's Cathedral Quarter. The building is listed in

the 1918 street directory as JJ Stafford & Sons of 12-14 Union

Street who manufactured wholesale boots and shoes.

Today it's surrounded by our national newspaper offices and has

been compassionately redeveloped with bars and clubs bringing

commercial life to a neglected chamber of the city's heart.

There's a lot going on in the Arts in Northern Ireland over the next

few weeks - here's what's coming up. Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, one of

the key creatives behind the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, is behind

another major spectacle, The Return of Colmcille, part of the UK City of

Culture programme. I met him to discuss.

Photography as contemporary art reflecting new ways of seeing our

violent past. We explore unique political landscapes in a new

exhibition - Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography hosted by

Belfast Exposed with the MAC theatre.

Controversy surrounds the future of the Ebrington site in Londonderry

which will stage the prestigious Turner Prize in October. What will

be its legacy post 2013? We explore the options.

And celebrating 100 years of the first competition score written for

Brass in the UK, we have a performance from award-winning local

impact here in Northern Ireland in recent years. Despite its wider

popularity here 150 years ago, it is still perceived as being elitist.

And there's a wider criticism that not enough is done to grow an

audience locally. In 2010, the arts Council of Northern Ireland created

NI Opera, promising a dynamic new approach to opera with productions

tailor-made to meet the needs of a modern audience. Three years on, how

has it in going? We went to find out. Opera. It could be the ideal

art form for Northern Ireland. Opera tells the biggest stories and it's

sung by people with the biggest voices. Never! Never! Never!But,

although Northern Ireland loves to wear its heart on its sleeve,most of

us have never had a night at the opera. NI Opera promised to be a

fresh start. So, has it found a new audience? It's based here, at

Belfast's Grand Opera house. Opened in 1895, its seats were filled by

opera lovers at a time when this was a mainstream night out. How

successful have you been at attracting new audiences to your

performances,and how can you gauge that? We can gauge it in two ways.

We can gauge it through the number of people who go and see our

productions. When we produced the Flying Dutchman here, over the

course of the performances, we achieved,I think it was 85-90%

audience capacity. But then, also, the levels of enthusiasm that people

give to usafter performances again, we've been really overwhelmed bythe

response. There is such fantastic music out there that we want to

bring to as wide an audience as possible. NI Opera's latest

production is A Hand Of Bridge, by Samuel Barber. It's the story of the

two dysfunctional couples and the anxieties hidden beneath the surface

of the green baize card table. It's being performed at bridge clubs.

aim to put on productions throughout Northern Ireland. Not just in

Belfast but the outlying regions as well. We are hoping that, in

producing A Hand Of Bridge, in what are very geographically spread

venues we will reach a demographicwho have not necessarily

seen opera in their lives before. And that's really what we're all

about. Most of the performers in A Hand of Bridge are on NI Opera's

Young Artist programme and there's not a PA system in sight. So, where

does that sound come from? We learn to breathe from what we call our

diaphragm support but also that our rib cage kind of expands to get as

much air in as possible. So, that way, I am able to not just sing from

my throat, but to disconnect everything. HE SINGS A SCALE. That's

kind of very thin and it wouldn't carry in a hall. Whereas, if I add

the breath and that the diaphragm, and expand it... HE SINGS SCALE

LOUDER AND MORE RESONANTLY. It can carry a lot more, in a bigger room.

And the grand Opera house has the very place. Compared to the room

that we were just in, this space lends itself to opening up, and you

can try and fill this room, hopefully, so that the people at the

back can hear everything as well as the people at the front. Put your

money where your mouth is. Time to fill this room with that voice.

try. HE SINGS LUSTILY IN ITALIAN. But, how would a new production go

down with audiences miles away from the Grand Opera house? Warrenpoint

Bridge Club meets hereat the local golf club. Is this where to find the

new audience for opera? Have you ever seen an opera before? Oh, yes.

You have? I have, yes. At the Opera house in London. Have you ever been

to an opera before? I have, yes. There are not too many of them

around here, so it's only occasional! # The Queen, you trumped

the Queen! Bridge clubs traditionally attended by

middle-class people, so in a way, you're not reaching a new audience.

Well, my feeling would be that I have no knowledge of playing bridge

in a club environment. So I am quite open in my expectations. And I think

from what I gather, Bridge players come from all parts of society. #

The king of diamonds, the Sultan of we ever see opera performed in a

bingo hall? If you can find me an opera about bingo, I will certainly

give it a go. If you can write one. I wondered how you could do a bridge

opera and I was surprised how well it worked. It was really good. Most

enjoyable. It is not something that was away in a big opera house.

wonderful idea. There should be sort of more of that kind of thing.

is a genuine drive to find a new audience for opera, but is it really

to be found at bridge clubs? Tonight's performance here in

Warrenpoint Has certainly come up trumps for NI Opera. But, I can't

help but wonder whether or not we will see an operatic performance

touring our local bingo halls any time soon. Frank Cottrell Boyce is a

heavyweight screenplay writer and children's novelist, whose CV

includes numerous feature films, TV soaps like Coronation Street and

Brookside. He was also a key member of the team behind the 2012 Olympics

Opening Ceremony. His next large scale project is a two-day pageant

in Derry which imagines the triumphant return from exile of the

city's home-grown Saint - Colmcille. Taking place around his Remembrance

Day in June, its success - like the Olympics - will depend on being able

to galvanise hundreds of volunteers to take part. I caught up with Frank

city for about 30 hours. There's going to be a massive show on the

River Foyle, where we're going to bring the Loch Ness monster down the

River Foyle because the life of Saint Columba is the first recorded

sighting of the Loch Ness monster. The story is that Colmcille came

back to the city and the city is going to tell him everything that he

missed in these intervening 1500 years. The whole story of the city

is going to be there. But the monster has also heard that

Colmcille saying he's coming back for revenge. So it ends with a big

Western-style showdown between a monk and a monster. In Irish, this

city is called "the oak grove of Colmcille". As a child he was said

to have been at the centre of miraculous events but left here, in

shame, in 563 A.D. ,after a bloody battle. In exile on the Scottish

island of Iona, he founded the monastery that was a beacon of

learning during the dark ages and which produced the Book of Kells.

From this tiny group of men on this tiny island, Europe was reborn,

really. The life story of St Colmcille it's full of miracles,

including him doing battle with the Loch Ness monster. Do you come to

these stories because of the miraculous element? For the opening

ceremony, we had this wall with quotes on. The quotation which

really stuck and sort of became the title which was this great line from

GK Chesterton where he said the world does not perish for lack of

wonders. The world is perishing for lack of wonder. And it's not about

you looking for miracles but to notice the miracles that are around

you all the time. Why does it fascinate you so much, the idea that

life can be amazing and even miraculous? It's just something I've

got a really strong sense of, and is a sense that some people don't have.

When it comes to Saints and miracles, Frank has previous form. A

man of strong faith, his writing is littered with moments of

transcendence, even in some very unlikely places. Tony, you did a

good job. Basically, you were right. Sean is the greatest poet since

Yeats. 24 hour Party People tells the story of Tony Wilson and the

Manchester music scene. It's a pity you didn't sign the Smiths, but

you're right about Mick Hucknall. also wrote the screenplay for the

2004 film, Millions, directed by Danny Boyle. A boy finds a bag of

used banknotes and sets out to make the world a better place, helped by

the saints that he meets along the way. You need to remember that there

is nearly always enough good around to be getting on with. You just got

to have a bit of faith, you know. If you have faith in people that makes

you stronger. Do you? You've got enough to sort all three of you out.

That seems to be very much at the core of who you are. If you've done

anything creative, that's the way it works. You've got to trust the

people around you. If you bring the water, it will be turned into wine.

In 2011, Frank got another call from Danny Boyle, asking him to be part

of the project that turned out to be a man-made miracle. The opening

ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics drew on a wealth of

experience from the creative team. But also a sense of wonder that we

see again and again in Frank's work. It was like being at primary school.

It was just fantastic. We were saying, can we have a tree, and can

we make a tree come up out of the ground? With people under it. OK,

let's see how we can do that. Just coming up with the maddest notions.

And what are we great at? Children's fiction. Harry Potter, Mary Poppins,

Winnie the Pooh, these amazing things. There's something really

sweet to be proud of that, because it's such a gentle, wholesome good

thing that we do really well. was the cauldron so special to you?

It was just so beautiful. 207 nations each brought their piece,

they joined together. It was such a simple story, but so profound.

with all that,and the euphoria of the success of that,why did you want

to do this project? Just, it pulls together so many things for me. I

love this city. And also,getting the opportunity to do another mass

participation event. Because my experience of the Olympics was

overwhelming. It was as though we had, or Danny had created, this sort

of temporary utopia, this vision of what life could be. We don't do that

a lot in art. A lot of art is about saying how rubbish things are. And

this wasn't saying anything. It was being something. But the way it

worked, it wasn't just the contents, it was the way people worked

together, the way they kept the surprise. The way that they took no

money and went that extra mile, it was a utopia, it was a vision of how

good it was can be. But it is a divided city. I am hoping that it'll

be a less divided city. And you think that a pageant, a creative

event, can be a miracle, in this city? Yes, we get attracted to

stories, and there is going to be a torrent of stories. If you can

change the story, you can change everything. And you think that is

possible? I think that is what the opening ceremony did. The story of

Britain is that it was great when Shakespeare was around. And we have

forgotten that we have done this, all these amazing things says. What

is your vision for Derry-Londonderry? That is for the

city. This shows sort of ends with it being turned to a blank page. And

what is it, it is up to this very young city to decide its future.

That is your role as a writer, to point that out. And if you look at

the story of Colmcille, he was stuffed, he had nothing left, but he

just kept believing that there was some purpose to him being here. You

in Belfast's Cathedral Quarter. Northern Ireland, 30 years of

photography features works reflecting our recent history and a

chance to view the conflict outside the dominant media representation.

But, is it art? We asked Professor of photography Paul Seawright, who

has strong views on the subject, to take us on a tour. There is work

here that has been hung in the Tate Gallery. It has been in modern art

-- -- the Museum of modern Art, New York. This is not just small-scale

local photography. This is a show of contemporary art, essentially, and

people who are working within the context of the gallery and the

museum, to talk about this place. There was a huge difference between

taking a photograph, and what we often called making a photograph.

Some of the photojournalism you will see in this exhibition is very much

made by photojournalists who was at the camera with them. The difference

between that and photographers like me, who work in a gallery context is

that everything is preconceived, it is much more deliberate. It is

something slower, that is the best way to think about it, so that the

meaning emerges from the image more slowly. This is probably my

favourite picture in this show. It is by the Welsh photographer Philip

Jones Griffiths. It is hanging beside pictures made in Northern

Ireland by an artist, who has worked the surface of the image, and

scratched and scrape them, but it is up photograph of a soldier taking

through his riot shield in 1973. It is fantastic. This is the reality of

being a young soldier, staring through this scratched, damaged

plexiglass. It is like as looking back at ourselves, at the past,

something we wish to forget, that is slowly disappearing and receding in

the memory. And for me, it sums all incredibly important. He was a

Chuter of mine 30 years ago, at art school. And when I first saw this

work, I remember thinking, how does that say anything about the troubles

in Northern Ireland? Just landscapes, fields and mountains and

very ordinary things. It was the first time that someone came from

Northern Ireland, and did not go to photograph a riot, or the aftermath

of them. They are in the frame, a union Jack flag in the middle of the

tree, and if you just look closely enough, no matter where you go in

the landscape, everything becomes emblematic and contested. The

landscape is never orderly and mutual, in this case. -- neutral.

These were from a series made 25 years ago called sectarian murder,

locations where civilians were murdered during the 1970s. I went

back to the sites and made these photographs and compare -- paired

them up with newspaper texts from the time. Just ordinary people dying

and being murdered with something that needed to be discussed. That

was the meaning that I wanted to make -- how to use the beautiful

landscape as a counterpoint to what is going on, to tell a very

difficult message? I think if you look at the legacy, Belfast exposed,

30 years, this is the perfect moment in time to bring all that together,

and to say that the legacy of an organisation like hell fast exposed,

is that they facilitated another way of representing who we are. --

Belfast exposed. The lack of gallery space in very-Londonderry raised the

question of where to host the works. The site looks fantastic. How big is

it? About 26 acres. And these had been sleeping quarters? I went to

December 2003, this would have been fully operational as an army

barracks. Yes, as an army base.It was all cellular, little

dormitories. It has been opened up into eight separate spaces, and now

integrated to function as one, not only for the Turner prize, but also

for its longer term use as a creative industries hub. The

refurbishment work as cost �2.4 million, including �350,000 added to

create state-of-the-art galleries, but it has been announced that after

this year there will almost certainly be used for a very

different purpose. When the Turner prize goes, in 2014, these will

become fancy opera spaces? In terms of how people will occupy it but not

in terms of its philosophy, it'll be run as creative industries hub, with

businessmen tour, for entrepreneurial development. This is

about jobs, about 50 small businesses kicking off from this

space. It is not going to be standard office space. Substantial

changes have been made to this building to host the Turner prize.

Areas of the first floor have been taken out so that large work can be

brought in. Artist Willie Doherty has twice been nominated for the

Turner prize and believes these galleries aren't too good to be just

a temporary facility. My concern is that come January 2014, that this

space that has been refurbished with such success will not continue to

function as a gallery. I feel that that is a missed opportunity. There

was a feasibility report that concluded that this site was

feasible, that it could be developed as a cultural centre and that an art

gallery would form part of that. what kind of work would you see

here? Recently, there was a war whole exhibition in Belfast. It

borrowed up foreign -- it borrowed a fabulous collection of works. This

space with its climate control could accommodate those kinds of

exhibitions. The potential is there, and we have two believe that. If

there is a failure to take advantage of this opportunity, then we should

be asking questions of organisations like Derry City Council, of

politicians. There is a lot at stake. The effort to consolidate

arts in this space has been giving up too easily. People are starting

to say, look at this space, it is fantastic, are there any other

options that are there any other options that could go into a revised

plan, that there could be some gallery option within this space?

Art is a creative industry, so I don't think that these two are

majorly exclusive. We are happy to have a conversation about whether a

gallery of regional significance it should be here. Any gallery would

need to share this building and some of the space would inevitably go to

other uses. Do you feel that it is still open to debate? I hope it is.

I would be very disappointed and depressed if I thought that the

decision had already been made, and that this gallery would close its

doors at the end of this year, and wouldn't open again. That would be a

terrible loss, and it would be a terrible indictment of our failure

to build on the potential legacy from 2014. A few weeks agowe learned

that a towering figure of the arts world here had died tragically. Mike

Moloney, an Australian teacher and street performer, first came to

Ireland in 1981. An inspirational soul with a rakish wit and charm,

Mike made Belfast his home, and in 1985 co-founded the Belfast

Community Circus School. In the 1990's he joined the Prison Arts

Foundation, becoming its Director in 2005. Thanks to his pioneering arts

projects which transformed lives, he leaves a lasting legacy. That's

almost it for tonight. The art show will be back on the 20th of June.

Until then, you can keep up-to-date at half-past six on BBC radio

Ulster's asked extra. You can join me on our Twitter account straight

after this show. We leave you with the performance. 2013 is a landmark

year for brass band busy. It is 100 years since the first original